The Minister of Culture and National Heritage and Zachęta—the National Gallery of Art are holding a competition to find a concept for a curatorial exhibition project at the Polish Pavilion for the 20th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, scheduled for May 8 through November 21, 2027.

The curators of the Venice Biennale will be Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, an architectural duo from the Chinese firm Amateur Architecture Studio. The theme of next year’s Venice Architecture Biennale is “Do Architecture — For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality,” encouraging participants to engage with reality, local practice, and the physical experience of creating architecture; and to reflect on architecture as a practice that seeks possibilities for the coexistence of nature and technology, memory and innovation, locality and global challenges.

Objective

The goal of the competition is to select a curatorial exhibition proposal to be realized in the Polish Pavilion, which will be presented during the 20th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

Projects submitted to the competition should address issues relevant to contemporary architecture, both locally and globally. Part of the competition proposal is also to define an original theme for the exhibition, along with a justification for it.

Terms and Conditions

The competition is open and consists of two stages. It is addressed to curators or curatorial teams. The project curator—or, in the case of a curatorial team, at least one member—must have: a college degree, a good understanding of contemporary architectural issues, curatorial experience in organizing exhibitions, and a very good command of English sufficient to communicate fluently, including, among other things, giving interviews or leading curatorial tours.

A prerequisite for submitting an entry is that the curator or curatorial team obtain the creative team’s consent to use existing works or commit to creating the work specified in Competition Entry II.

For Stage I, submit Competition Entry I, which includes:

1. a general concept for the exhibition along with a specific, original theme,
2. a general visualization of the exhibition,
3. a preliminary overall cost estimate for the exhibition, broken down into major cost categories,
4. additional materials, such as material samples.

Participants whose entries, following the jury’s deliberations, have been selected to advance to Stage II of the competition must submit Competition Entry II, which serves as a further development of the project presented in Stage I. Competition Entry II should include:

1. a detailed exhibition concept,
2. an exhibition scenario along with visualizations,
3. a summary of the concept and script,
4. a cost estimate accounting for all exhibition production costs, broken down by individual expense categories,
5. a description of the measures planned by the curatorial/creative team that will help minimize the project’s negative impact on the natural environment, or information stating that there are no factors negatively affecting the environment, along with a justification,
6. additional materials.

Detailed guidelines are available in the competition rules.

Timeline

• Submission deadline (Stage I): by August 20, 2026
• Announcement of Stage I results: September 1, 2026
• Planned deadline for submission of entries (Stage II): by October 1, 2026

Jury

• Michał Duda — Director of the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, architectural historian
• Donata Jaworska — Director of the Department of National Cultural Institutions at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
• Aleksandra Kędziorek — art and architecture historian, researcher of contemporary architecture
• Michał Krasucki — art historian, acting director of the National Heritage Institute
• Maciej Kuryłowicz — representative of the Association of Polish Architects, architect, First Vice President of the Association of Polish Architects
• Marcin Kwietowicz — architect, exhibition designer at the Polish Pavilion in 2005 and 2026
• Grzegorz Piątek — architect, critic, and architectural historian
• Agnieszka Pindera — curator, art theorist, director of Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, curator of the Polish Pavilion in Venice
• Ewa Porębska — architect, architecture critic, exhibition curator
• Dorota Leśniak-Rychlak — architect, art historian, editor-in-chief of “Autoportret” magazine
• Bolesław Stelmach — architect, acting director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning
• Małgorzata Tomczak — architecture critic, editor-in-chief of “Architektura & Biznes”
• Olga Wysocka — cultural manager, political scientist, director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute

Awards

The competition features only one prize, which will be awarded to the curator or curatorial team of the selected project. This award consists of a recommendation for the selected project to be realized at the Polish Pavilion during the 20th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2027, as well as an invitation to the creative team to enter into an agreement with the organizer regarding the preparation and realization of the exhibition. The costs of preparing and producing the exhibition, as well as the curator’s and artists’ fees, will be covered by the organizer.

More information

You can find more details on the competition website.

terms

https://labiennale.art.pl/konkurs/

regulations

https://labiennale.art.pl/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Regulamin-konkursu-Biennale-Architektury-2027-1.pdf